Reading

At Braywick Court School we strive for pupils to develop a lifelong love of reading, to be confident and fluent readers who enjoy reading for pleasure. The deeply rooted culture of reading within our school is intended to promote reading at every opportunity. Research shows that reading for pleasure has a positive impact on children’s attainment. Children who read for pleasure have enhanced levels of text comprehension, an increased knowledge of grammar and show improvement in their writing. Research has also found children who read often at the age of ten perform better than their peers in tests of spelling, vocabulary and even mathematics when tested at the age of sixteen, they also have more positive attitudes towards reading than their peers.

We believe in both the importance of developing children’s discrete word-reading skills and comprehension, and the need to engender their love of books and reading. At Braywick Court School, we recognise these two elements are intertwined; each relies on the other if children are to become life-long readers. We have two fully stocked libraries; which pupils use weekly. The libraries are stocked with a range of high quality texts, carefully selected by staff and pupils. We ensure that our library stock represents a range of authors and cultures and is regularly reviewed.

Pupil librarians play an important role in promoting the library. In addition, each class has a clearly visible reading area from which pupils are encouraged to select books to read for pleasure. Staff ensure that stock with in the class library complements, enhances and extends the curriculum being taught and covers a range of fiction and non-fiction. Ongoing fundraising and parental support ensures the library stock is able to be refreshed and remain current and meet the needs of all of our pupils.